Mint Chocolate
by lydiamaartin
Summary: Ginny is addicted to mint chocolate ice cream. In true Weasley fashion, this leads to flirting with cashier boys and denying that she drooled when she saw Harry Potter shirtless. Oh, and snogging, of course. - AU - HarryGinny


**Disclaimer: I am not JKR and do not own these characters. This takes place sometime during spring break of HBP, and is, if you couldn't tell AU, so Ginny and Dean are broken up but Harry and Ginny haven't kissed yet.

* * *

**Ginny Weasley collapsed gracelessly onto a couch, brushed her hair out of her face, blew a windy sigh, observed her reflection in the newly-polished table, clasped and unclasped her bracelet, thought about her recent break-up, tried not to think about how she had seen Harry Potter shirtless just a few short hours ago, tuned out the sounds of Ron and Hermione's bickering with the ease of years of practice, and decided to admit the truth.

"—if you weren't such a lazy, arrogant, annoying—"

"—one who's annoying, and I'll have you know—"

She was addicted to mint chocolate ice cream.

In fact, she was hopelessly, desperately, completely, and utterly addicted to mint chocolate ice cream and unfortunately, at that very moment, there was none—not even a tiny spoonful—in the house.

This was, obviously, a problem of gigantic proportions. If she had been told that Lord Voldemort himself had ten gallons of mint chocolate ice cream in his evil headquarters of doom, she would march right over there and attack his supply with the hunger and ferocity of a Hungarian Horntail.

As it was, Lord Voldemort did not, to her knowledge, have ten gallons of mint chocolate ice cream in his evil headquarters of doom, or anywhere else, for that matter. So, she was stuck here, in her mint-chocolate-ice-cream-less house, feeling depressed in the depressing fashion of depressed teenagers everywhere.

Okay, so she wasn't actually depressed. More like supremely annoyed, but depressed, in her humble opinion, sounded a lot more dramatic when repeated frequently.

Anyway, as she was sitting on the couch, feeling like she'd rather like to throw a tantrum, just on principle, Harry Potter wandered into the living room, happily oblivious to Ginny's state. Of course, as soon as he saw her sitting there, looking supremely annoyed as she usually did when there was no mint chocolate ice cream in her reach, his 'making people happy thing' kicked in. It was distantly related to his 'saving people thing'. According to Hermione, people with one 'thing' generally had the other 'thing' as well.

But that's a story for another day.

"Ginny, what's the matter?" he asked, concerned and not a little frightened as he approached her.

"I'm supremely annoyed," Ginny informed him cheerfully.

"Okay," Harry said cautiously. "Why?"

"Because," Ginny sulked, "there is _no mint chocolate ice cream_ _in this house_!"

Clearly, this was a matter important enough to emphasize. Clearly, Harry did not grasp this fact.

"So?" he said, bewildered that she was raising such a fuss over something so trivial. "Get some more."

"From where?" Ginny demanded.

"From the muggle supermarket down in the village," Harry said slowly, as though speaking to a toddler.

Ginny didn't even notice his tone of voice as her eyes lit up. "They have mint chocolate ice cream there?" she asked.

"Well, yeah, why wouldn't they?" said Harry, still perplexed that she hadn't thought of such a simple solution. "It's the middle of the day, so you could go get some right now."

Ginny clapped her hands in delight. "Come with me?" she asked, already on her feet and reaching for her jacket.

"Um, I was thinking of mediating, actually," Harry said, glancing at Ron and Hermione in the next room over. Their voices had escalated even more, if that was possible, and he quickly decided against it. "But I think I'd rather come with you."

"Yay!" Ginny beamed, tossing him his jacket and making him think she was acting like a little kid instead of a fifteen-year-old witch who's fought with terrorists, but he wasn't going to mention that to her. "Come on, I'll write a note to Mum and then we can go!"

Soon enough, they were walking through the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, having left behind the not-so-peaceful Burrow to the mercy of Ron and Hermione's tempers. Harry felt slightly guilty about leaving his friends to fight until they started snogging, but mostly he was preoccupied with not thinking about how cute Ginny was when she acted like a five-year-old going to a candy store.

The supermarket was in view and Ginny was about to head in, when Harry realized a problem with their plan. "Erm, Ginny," he said, making her stop and sigh impatiently. "I don't suppose you have any muggle money on you?"

Ginny blinked at him. "…No," she said slowly, dragging the word out. "Do you?"

"Uh, no," he said, mentally cringing. "Sorry."

Ginny didn't seem to have heard him. She was busy staring at the open door of the supermarket. When she finally spoke, it wasn't anything Harry was expecting her to say. "There's a teenage boy working one of the lines," she said, tilting her head. "I bet I could flirt with him and he'd give us the ice cream for free."

Harry gaped at her. "_What_? Ginny, you can't just…_seduce_ cashiers and expect to get stuff for free!" He tried to ignore the voice in his head telling him that he was more upset about the fact that Ginny might be flirting with another boy that about her trying to get out of paying.

By the time he had gotten that voice to shut up, Ginny had already vanished into the store's brightly-lit depths.

* * *

"I can't believe you actually got away with it," Harry grumbled. At his side, Ginny happily clutched a container of mint chocolate ice cream to her chest, having paid approximately nothing for it.

"Oh, stop acting so jealous," Ginny said absently.

Harry spluttered. "I'm not _jealous_!" Why had he fallen for her again?

She turned and flashed him a mischievous grin. Oh, yeah, because she was pretty and cute and funny and when she smiled, she made butterflies dance in his stomach like…dancing butterflies...Harry sighed. And on top of all that, she'd managed to turn him into a sap. It left no doubt in his mind. Ginny Weasley was five feet and three inches of pure, sap-turning evil.

Although, it was a little hard to think along those lines when she was smiling up at him like that.

"Sure, you aren't," she agreed mock-sweetly. "That's why you were glaring at the cashier like you wanted to hex him six ways from Sunday."

"I was not!" he protested to no avail, and then decided to switch tracks. "And you're one to talk, anyway—I saw the look you sent to that girl behind us in the line who was trying to flirt with me."

Ginny froze to match her beloved ice cream. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said primly.

Harry laughed. "Sure, you don't," he said, throwing her words back at her with no small amount of enthusiasm. "And let's not forget the way you drooled when you saw me shirtless this morning."

Ginny whipped her head around to glare at him. "I was not _drooling_," she snapped. "I was just surprised. I didn't expect to see you shirtless, you know."

"Hm," said Harry noncommittally, grinning at her.

Ginny stuck her tongue out at him, and he was filled with the sudden, inexplicable urge to kiss her.

His logical, reasonable side rattled off a list of arguments as to why that was a Very Bad Idea, capitalized, in no more than ten seconds. In the span of those ten seconds, he found himself leaning closer and closer until his one more move would have his lips pressed against hers. There was a soft thump as the ice cream landed on the grass below them, and he had a split second to comprehend the feeling of Ginny's arms winding around his neck before she had tugged him down into a butterfly-inducing kiss.

She tasted like mint chocolate ice cream, he noticed, highly amused by the fact. She was also a remarkably good kisser, and some part of his mind was wondering where she had learned to kiss like that, but he decided to ignore that part and just keep on kissing her, because it was amazing and wonderful and made his butterflies dance the freakin' tango with ecstasy.

"Um," Harry said eloquently when they finally pulled apart for air. He opened his mouth to try again, but what came out was incoherent stammering, and he quickly clamped his mouth shut to avoid further embarrassment. His face felt hot enough as it was.

"We should get going," Ginny said awkwardly, picking up her fallen ice cream and looking anywhere but at him.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, feeling each and every butterfly die a slow death at her words. "We should."

It wasn't until they were at the door of the Burrow that Harry finally worked up his courage enough to speak. "Ginny?" he said, praying he wouldn't squeak.

"Yes?" she asked, peering at him through her lashes and a curtain of hair.

"Would you, um, like to do that again sometime?" Merlin, he could practically _see_ the blush on his face.

A small smile quirked her lips. "Go shopping for mint chocolate ice cream or snog the living daylights out of each other?"

His cheeks heated up even more, if that was possible. "I meant go to the village."

She blinked. "Go to the village?" she repeated blankly.

"Yeah, you know, on a, um, date. If you want to." He was fidgeting and blushing and stammering and hoping against hope that she would say 'Yes, of course, Harry, I love you with all my heart' or something along those lines.

A little ego-boosting went a long way, after all.

Ginny spoke, interrupting his fantasy. "I'd love to," she said, grinning at him. "On one condition."

"What's that?" he asked, half-euphoric, half-apprehensive.

She lifted the container of ice cream. "You let me stuff myself with mint chocolate ice cream."

Harry couldn't help but laugh. "Gladly," he said, and swept her into another mind-blowing kiss.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Oh, the joys of silly, mindless plot bunnies. This is just self-indulgent fluff, but if you liked it anyway, please drop me a review! Thanks!**


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